a ropes course

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Louise under Early Learning, Games & Activities, movement & physical learning

We are always looking for ways to challenge and engage all children in different ways – our very active children love climbing and stretching themselves. Our educator, Bev, suggested a ropes course. We are a bit limited by the location of the trees but we have put one up.

We discussed safety and everyone attached a strip of fabric to make sure people could see the ropes when they are playing nearby.

There were lots of ways to get across the course and some children kept on practising. Resilience in action.

at kinder, everyone can read, including the dogs ….

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Louise under Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, Language & Literacy

A game developed one day this week where the tent was used to keep the dogs in. Dogs are a popular part of pretend games, as there is usually someone happy to be a dog, to be owned and looked after by someone, and someone else keen to do the bossing and /or nurturing required. Firstly there was dog food to be made, from the sand pit, and to be eaten, but these dogs were getting out when they weren’t supposed to – so the owners found clipboards, textas, stickytape etc and made some STOP signs for each side of the tent – then carefully showed the dogs that they were there and that they said STOP NO DOGS ALLOWED.

Making the river run

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Louise under Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, Enquiry & Discovery, Learning through play, Maths, movement & physical learning, The Natural Environment

We have a dry creek bed – and it has really been dry because our handpump has been out of action for over a year. Finally it has been fixed. The interest in making a river has ignited!

But hard pumping by itself didn’t make it run…. even when people dug out the stones and dirt to clear a channel for the water to come down.

Claudia started to bring containers full of water down to where they wanted the sea or a lake to be – and after she had

collected 5 , suddenly everyone was inspired to get lots. What great problem sxolving!

They ended up getting 70 containers – all shapes and sizes. We counted them every now and then as the number grew – first just 5 then 11 then 20 then 40 and then 70.

Then everyone got busy with emptying the containers all together – the excitement was tangible. Some emptied and some cleared.

After that we got the boats out….

damper

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Louise under Early Learning, Emergent Curriculum, Kids cooking

We made some damper at kinder to cook on our camp fire. When we had to cancel the bush excursion because of the extreme weather, we shaped our pieces and cooked it in the oven. Minus the ash, smoke, dirt and charcoal, still tasted good!

The children really enjoyed using the damper to shape something special – Claire made a frog, and it stayed together well, so we could still tell what it was.

Aboriginal ways of being

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Louise under Creativity & Imagination, Enquiry & Discovery, learning about our community, The Natural Environment

We have been learning about Aboriginal culture from Will Hannah. On Thursday he showed us how to make paint brushes from sticks. First you choose a green twig, but only take what you need.